President Obama is happy to negotiate with the mullahs of Iran, even though they march forward on their quest to develop nuclear weapons, are the top promoter and funder of terrorism across the globe, and stormed an American Embassy and held Americans working there hostage for 444 days. He’s happy to negotiate with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who smiles at you while he’s plunging a dagger in your back. And Barack Obama is now happy to negotiate with the likes of Bashar al Assad of Syria, who used chemical weapons against his own people, killing 426 innocent children.
But he refuses to negotiate with the duly-elected representatives of the American people, the United States House of Representatives. And if they won’t give him exactly what he wants, he’ll shut down the government, and then attempt to blame it on them. And Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are his willing accomplices in this power play.
Remember a few years back, when civility was all the rage? Here’s President Obama on the topic back then:
Now let’s take a look at the rhetoric President Obama and his allies use to describe their Republican adversaries. Nancy Pelosi describes Republicans in the House as “legislative arsonists.” Harry Reid one-upped Nancy by referring to Republicans as “Tea Party anarchists.” And our “civility” President calls Republicans who think differently than he does “extortionists” and “hijackers.” So much for measuring one’s language and contributing to civil discourse.
With all the name-calling by Democrats against Republicans, the truth is that Republicans have been the ones who have been willing to negotiate and come to some reasonable compromise. For example, yesterday three bills were voted on in the House to fully fund the Veterans Administration, our national parks and memorials, and the Washington, D.C. city government. Virtually all Republicans in the House voted for all three. About 75% of Democrats in the House voted AGAINST all three. (In order to speed up passage of these three reasonable, common-sense bills, they were put on the so-called suspension calendar, which means that 2/3s of the House must vote yes in order for passage.) Speaker Boehner and the Republican leadership assumed that most Democrats would vote for passage of each bill, because the Democrats have been criticizing Republicans for each of these governmental agencies being shut down. Bad assumption. Democrats in the House defeated all three. It is expected that today all three bills will be brought up again (this time not on the suspension calendar, so only a majority vote is required for passage.) Since we won’t need any Democrat votes, I expect all three will pass this time.
Unfortunately, Harry Reid and President Obama said they will oppose all three bills, so this reasonable attempt to re-open at least these popular parts of the government is in jeopardy. It’s hard to come to any conclusion other than that Democrats are playing politics, and they really don’t care about re-opening the government. They think they’ll benefit politically by a mostly-friendly mainstream press parroting their story that Republicans are at fault here, and that’s all there is to it.
Yesterday of course was also the first day of the big rollout for signing up for Obamacare. The Obama Administration has had three years to prepare for the big day. How did it go? Surprise, surprise. A total mess. The sign-up system crashed. Interminable waits. Scammers stealing data and personal information making the public more vulnerable to identity theft schemes.
The Obama Administration spokespeople are calling these major failures “glitches” in an attempt to minimize the debacle. The bottom line is, do we trust these people to control something so critical as our healthcare? I don’t think so.
How will this all end? It’s impossible to tell, but as always, I welcome your input. Of course if you call or email my official office, it may take a bit longer for us to respond, as I have furloughed about half of my staff until the shutdown is resolved. I’m sure you’ll understand.